Monthly Archives: July 2014

Thanks to my friend Randy Brown for this thought:
Often, when you select a You Tube clip, it starts with a commercial. In many instances, a message pops up in the lower right portion of the screen that says “You can skip to video in…” and then it counts down 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1, then you click it to get to what you actually wanted to see in the first place.

That’s the way people think when they listen to you. You start talking, and in the listener’s head, the 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 countdown begins.

Get on into it, or the listener “clicks” mentally—or sometimes even physically—and isn’t hearing you anymore. It’s just “blah-blah-blah” noise in the background. So you want to connect the Subject to the Listener as concisely as you can.

We have to EARNEVERY SINGLE SECOND OF LISTENING that we get. You do not deserve being listened to just because your transmitter is on.

After you’ve become a successful talent, one of the most significant challenges with your show’s Content is knowing when to stop doing something.

People listen for 10 minutes—20 if you’re lucky. Huge fans of the show will listen longer, unless they feel that it’s just rehash. Then, even they will go find something else.

So try this on for size:
[A] Whatever you do, treat it as a “one-off” break, meaning that it could stand alone. Plan to move on to something else the next break.

[B] But IF you get a decent reaction—a phone caller, for instance, or if you have a teammate on the show that might have a different “take” on it, okay, air that.

[C] Everything else on that subject now has to EARN being on. This means it has to cover NEW ground, not just repeat a point that’s already been made or give a second example of something we already heard.

Think of it like movies with sequels. Almost every time, the sequels get worse. The 4th Indiana Jones movie, the 4th Lethal Weapon movie, the additional 3 Star Wars movies, or any Jennifer Aniston movie.

It seems so easy to hear the mistakes your competitors make–the things they do that are dumb, not thought out well, phony-sounding, pukey, lame, irritating or obvious.

But for most air talents, it’s hard to hear ourselves the same way.
It’s because we know it’s us. Someone we like. Someone we root for and want to succeed.

So here’s the lesson: To really be able to listen to audio of yourself and make improvement, you want to try and hear yourself as a disembodied voice that belongs to someone else. You need to critique yourself just like you would your most hated competitor.
I’ve always tried to listen to myself like it was just an aircheck that someone sent in looking for a job, and assess it accordingly, asking things like…
Does this person get to the point?
Is he having fun?
Is he obvious, or does he go somewhere with things that most people don’t? If I were coaching him, what would I tell him to help him get better?

You don’t want to kid yourself about your strengths or weaknesses. Maybe they’re not what you think they are. If you’re not sure, I’ll be glad to help you.

Gary Larson, the creator of The Far Side comic strip, had this great two-panel cartoon. The first panel was titled, “What we say to dogs.” A guy scolding his dog was saying “Okay, Ginger! I’ve had it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage, or else!” The second panel was titled, “What they hear.” Same drawing–the guy pointing his finger at the dog, but the dog is hearing him say, “Blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah.”

This not only applies to the Listener—you have to be talking about things that he or she CARES about—it also applies to your Air Talent. Say you’ve had a coaching session, and decided that for the next two weeks, you want the Talent to work on being concise.

When you listen to audio of the show together, talking about anything other than that point just translates to “blah…blah…blah” to the Talent. What he or she wants and needs is for you to address the one thing that you said to work on.
So your responsibility is to have the discipline and patience to “lay one brick at a time” instead of trying to build the whole house at once.

A great way to approach using aircheck audio in sessions is to have the Talent bring in something that he or she would like you to listen to. That way, you get an idea of their level of understanding, and their opinions of themselves. (You also make the Talent a part of the process, instead of just conducting a lecture series.)

Think of how many times you’ve heard an Air Talent say–more often than not, with the sound of rustling paper or a page turning in the background–“I was reading an article in this magazine yesterday,” or “I saw in the paper this morning that….”

Or there’s the “attribution” thing of “This morning in the Dallas Morning News…”

Listen, it’s not 1995. Information was once the most valuable thing on Earth. Now, in the era of smart phones and social media, it’s the cheapest commodity there is.

So OWN the information.
The late, great sports broadcaster, Howard Cosell, had the right idea forty years ago. You’d hear Howard say, “Tommy Lasorda, the Dodgers manager, told me over lunch today that he’s thinking of moving Ron Cey from third base to shortstop.” Well, in reality, at the “lunch” there were about a hundred other sports guys there, and Lasorda was seated at a dais, taking questions. But Cosell made it seem like it was privileged knowledge, that only he and Lasorda were in the room, and that he was letting you in on something that no one else could tell you. So when you did hear that item again later in the day on the local sportscast, or see it in the paper, your first thoughts were, “Yeah, I knew that. I heard Howard Cosell say it. That’s where they got it.”

Oh, and don’t READ it to me, just TELL it to me—you know, like real people might say to each other in the hallway at work, or by the coffee maker, or at a party.